Bret Michaels Explains Why Slash Didn’t Fit In With Poison

Could you imagine how different Poison would sound if Slash was their guitarist? Or how the former Guns N’ Roses star would look with poofy hair and tons of makeup? Well, the top-hatted one did in fact try out for the job, and as you might expect it wasn’t a perfect match.

Poison singer Bret Michaels tells the Austin-American Statesman, “Slash is one of my all-time favorite guitar players and I believe he would have steered our sound a little more in the Aerosmith direction. He was basically the same guy he is today. What you see is what you get. It never really had a chance to work out or not. The band decided C.C. (DeVille) was the best choice for us.”

Slash revealed in a 2010 interview with Classic Rock Revisited that he had been in the pre-GNR band Hollywood Rose and decided to quit. He recalled, “I couldn’t handle it anymore and I walked. That was right after the first time Axl and I ever worked together. Matt, the original guitar player for Poison, who was actually a pretty cool guy, had gotten his wife pregnant or they were getting married or something like that. He was moving back to Pennsylvania. He goes, ‘You should try out for Poison.’

The guitarist says he wasn’t a fan of the band, but in those days you did what you had to in order to keep playing. Slash revealed that he made it down to the final two, but when he was asked about the makeup and style that went along with the band, he knew it wasn’t going to work. He recalls, “As I was walking out of the audition, C.C. DeVille was walking in. He had on pancake makeup and a ton of hairspray. I actually remember thinking right then, ‘That should be the guy.’” Slash played in a few more bands after that audition before connecting with GNR.